rabidmuskrat wrote:I mean, if you want to ask for money on something that is less than version 1.0 that's fine, as long as you are very upfront with that fact. If people want to gamble on an unfinished product, that's their prerogative. I just won't be one of them.

Yeah, I have my preferences for how i think the world should operate, but I agree with you. I would rather the temptation to not be there, because sometimes early access and kickstarters feel very exploitative, even if I don't participate. But it's a free market... if people are willing to offer a company money then I can't fault the company for being willing to take it.

I kinda like Destiny 2 and I'm having trouble figuring out why. It's a little bit less MMORPG than it is MMOARPG (which some people might call diablo or somesuch) and yes, it's a shooter rather than an RPG but otherwise I think that description works. It also seems fundamentally less twitchy than a more competitive shooter? You take a lot of damage, the enemy takes a lot of damage, the AI is pretty dumb, etc. Skill can substitute for some gear, but not really a whole lot. It's mostly a numbers game like any other RPG.

I just did the free game part, which stops at level 20 (where everyone else is level 50) and the gear you have access to is pretty limited. I feel like some of the endgame from the original release is broken now with the expansions they expect you to have but I didn't play before any of that to know for sure. No monthly fee but they don't seem to be very forgiving of those who are missing the latest 3 month installment (which cost effectively a monthly fee anyway). Maybe if I had some friends who were more into it I would stick around.

Anyway, worth a play for free at a surprisingly relaxing shooter. Maybe in a year or something they'll shift more of the current pay walled content free and I'll log back in and shoot some more.

Title: It was given by the XKCD moderators to me because they didn't care what I thought (I made some rantings, etc). I care what YOU think, the joke is forums.xkcd doesn't care what I think.

I actually thought of ARK, but as far as I can tell it doesn't do much more than using dinos as basic transport. The Dino-Riders show imagined a lot more... the dinos like platforms for futuristic weaponry. Also ARK's open world survival game play does little for me.

I was thinking Orion Prelude. Though there's no dinosaur riding with lasers and shields, it's sci fi lasers and jetpacks fighting dinosaurs. Not to understate the downgrade but it's probably the closest thing. Wave survival Halo versus dinosaurs. I found it boring.

I've been meaning to mention that Naissance is free now. It was mentioned before in this thread at some point. It's one of my favorite games and I've played it at least a dozen times. You'll know if you like the game shortly after you enter the second level, because you'll have seen what the game is about by then. It's a surreal spatial environment with blocky architecture with some real-world features. Most of the time it looks like you're an electron in a hyperdimensional electronic circuit. It's blurry whether or not you're the only lifeform. The weirdest thing of all is that you're definitely human, definitely female.

There are light puzzles that won't slow you down at all, they're easy to comprehend and solve. One of them has embarrassing music but otherwise they're okay. The thing is that the puzzles are a distraction from the real challenge of the game. It continually challenges your perceptions of what the rules are of the space that you're in, and it does so in unique ways that I have rarely if ever experienced in other games. It will try your patience. You will, guaranteed, not know where to go or what to do if you go in blind. You will doubt yourself, and that's the point. I always enjoy it when games are willing to step away from "fun" conventions for the sake of art and creating something memorably unique. I'm not sure how alone I am in that though, as this whole idea of "don't waste my time or jerk me around no matter what the point of it is; every game must be a streamline" is becoming at least more vocal.

GFT: I'm playing through Fallout 1 and 2, since I haven't touched them in about 18 years and I'm feeling nostalgic. Fallout is a little harder than I expected, but then I remembered that having a decent Gambling skill means you can go into a casino and print money. Now I'm level 5 with 50,000 caps.

... My headcanon is that Vault 13 was sponsored by Nuka-Cola so they had tons of it lying around. When the Vault Dweller discovered people were using it as currency he went back into the garbage for all the caps, thereby becoming independently wealthy.